


To the stars

by TerresDeBrume



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 04:07:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/605641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerresDeBrume/pseuds/TerresDeBrume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony isn't in the mood for stargazing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To the stars

**Author's Note:**

> The soundtrack for this drabble is the piece _To the stars_ from the Dragonheart soundtrack.

 

Picture made with this [[x](http://29a.ch/sandbox/2011/neonflames/)]

 

“Look,” Tony says as he follows Thor into the telescope room, “I appreciate that you want to bond and all that jazz, teamworking, I get it, but I really, really don’t need that right now.”

 

His back is still painful. His arm stings everytime he moves a little too much in his plaster, and the burn on his right cheek is going to stay for a while but it’s… well. Cheesy as it may sound, it’s his heart that hurst the most.

He can’t bring himself to pretend they’re the team the public thinks they are, not when this situation feels so different to him from what it feels like for the others.

 

“I know you are grieving,” Thor says in a quiet voice he only recently took to use, “When the others aren’t. I, too, miss Loki.”

 

It’s true, Tony remembers. Loki was Thor’s brother. It’s easy to forget, considering the way everybody else seemed to think not killing Loki meant the end of the world…it’s probably ironic, then, that Loki died saving them.

But then, Loki did seem to like being where people didn’t expect him to be.

 

“Sorry,” Tony says. “It’s just weird to think he’s…gone. For real I mean.”

 

Before that, whenever Loki disappeared from the surface of the earth (sometimes quite literally) they could all assume he was off spreading chaos somewhere else. Now he’s not going to be back anymore, he’s just dead, and that makes Tony…sad. A lot more than it should.

 

“Although he did set up a hell of a firework show.”

 

Tony still remembers how it looked then, Loki’s entire body glowing bright shades of gold and green lights, so intense he had to screw his eyes shut, and even then he saw everything as if they were open. He remembers the sparks, the intense feeling of _will_ rushing through him, the light, and then quiet like he never heard it in New York before.

 

“He will like hearing this,” Thor says.

“Thor, he’s not….”

“Would you like to take a look?” Thor cuts.

“Thor,” Tony says, frowning, “I appreciate you’re trying to bond but Like I said….”

“Please.”

 

Tony sighs, but does.

He doesn’t know how Thor managed to set the telescope, seeing as, as far as anyone is aware, Thor is perfectly fine with his knowledge of human technology not going beyond the use of a toaster and landline phone. Still, there is no doubt what Tony sees now is exactly what Thor wanted him to.

The lights curl and twist together, bright and clean in the dark of space, and Tony recognizes branches, leaves, the shape of a tree spread for thousands of light years on a scope not even he can get a real idea of. It’s a beautiful sight, and Tony feels his throat tighten as he looks at the green above, the golden bark, the almost-unnoticeable roots.

 

“Yggdrasil,” Thor comments next to him, “The world tree.”

“It looks…great,” Tony comments.

 

Behind him, he can feel the smile in Thor’s sigh, hear the wetness in his voice when he says:

 

“Loki used to talk to it when we were younger. He said it brought him calm, and a way to sort through his own head.”

“Have you ever done that?” Tony asks.

“Not until Loki died,” Thor answers softly. “Not until the leaves appeared.”

 

Tony spins on his heels so fast he nearly trips on his own feet, but Thor is nowhere to be seen, and the man of Iron is left alone with a nebula he didn’t even know existed and the knowledge that the being most of earth feared until a month ago has created, in dying, the most beautiful thing Tony has ever seen.

 

“Well,” he says around the lump in his throat, tears prickling at the corner of his eyes, “I always knew you had a thing for grandiose.”

 

And maybe it’s just projection, but he’s pretty sure he sees something twinkle in the sky above his head.

**Author's Note:**

> This work is dedicated to Emily, aka Starkrevelation. Your words will never make me cry again.


End file.
